Los Angeles Kings’ first round draftee Gabe Vilardi, right, talks to senior advisor to the general manager Mike O’Connell during day 3 of the team’s development camp at Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo on Thursday, June 28, 2018. (Photo by Kyusung Gong/Contributing Photographer)

Prospect Sam Steel shoots the puck during the Ducks’ annual development camp at Anaheim ICE in Anaheim on Friday, June 29, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Los Angeles Kings senior advisor to the general manager Mike O’Connell gives instructions to the players during day 3 of the team’s development camp at Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo on Thursday, June 28, 2018. (Photo by Kyusung Gong/Contributing Photographer)

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Prospects Troy Terry, left, and Max Jones chat during the Ducks’ annual development camp at Anaheim ICE in Anaheim on Friday, June 29, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Los Angeles Kings second round draftee Akil Thomas during day 3 of the team’s development camp at Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo on Thursday, June 28, 2018. (Photo by Kyusung Gong/Contributing Photographer)

Prospect Sam Steel talks with assistant coach Mark Morrison during the Ducks’ annual development camp at Anaheim ICE in Anaheim on Friday, June 29, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Los Angeles Kings’ Gabe Vilardi, right, chats with Johan Sodergran during day 3 of the team’s development camp at Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo on Thursday, June 28, 2018. (Photo by Kyusung Gong/Contributing Photographer)

Assistant coach Marty Wilford talks to prospects during the Ducks’ annual development camp at Anaheim ICE in Anaheim on Friday, June 29, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Los Angeles Kings’ second round draftee Akil Thomas, center, controls the puck during day 3 of the team’s development camp at Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo on Thursday, June 28, 2018. (Photo by Kyusung Gong/Contributing Photographer)

Prospect Troy Terry skates during the Ducks’ annual development camp at Anaheim ICE in Anaheim on Friday, June 29, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Los Angeles Kings first round draftee Gabe Vilardi during day 3 of the team’s development camp at Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo on Thursday, June 28, 2018. (Photo by Kyusung Gong/Contributing Photographer)

Assistant coach Todd Marchant watches from the stands during the Ducks’ annual development camp at Anaheim ICE in Anaheim on Friday, June 29, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Los Angeles Kings’ Jaret Anderson-Dolan during day 3 of the team’s development camp at Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo on Thursday, June 28, 2018. (Photo by Kyusung Gong/Contributing Photographer)

Prospect Sam Steel shoots the puck on goaltender Olle Eriksson-Ek during the Ducks’ annual development camp at Anaheim ICE in Anaheim on Friday, June 29, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Los Angeles Kings senior advisor to the general manager Mike O’Connell watches the players warm up during day 3 of the team’s development camp at Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo on Thursday, June 28, 2018. (Photo by Kyusung Gong/Contributing Photographer)

Prospect Sam Steel passes the puck during the Ducks’ annual development camp at Anaheim ICE in Anaheim on Friday, June 29, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Los Angeles Kings’ Kyle Clague during day 3 of the team’s development camp at Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo on Thursday, June 28, 2018. (Photo by Kyusung Gong/Contributing Photographer)

Assistant coach Todd Marchant watches from the stands during the Ducks’ annual development camp at Anaheim ICE in Anaheim on Friday, June 29, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Los Angeles Kings’ Akil Thomas, left, chats with Mike Eyssimont during day 3 of the team’s development camp at Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo on Thursday, June 28, 2018. (Photo by Kyusung Gong/Contributing Photographer)

GM Bob Murray talks with his staff during the Ducks’ annual development camp at Anaheim ICE in Anaheim on Friday, June 29, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

San Diego Gulls head coach Dallas Eakins talks with players during the Ducks’ annual development camp at Anaheim ICE in Anaheim on Friday, June 29, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Prospect Sam Steel skates down the ice during the Ducks’ annual development camp at Anaheim ICE in Anaheim on Friday, June 29, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

In a less enlightened age, NHL teams expected their prospects to come to training camp and figure things out on their own.

“Be ready to play,” former Ducks forward Todd Marchant said simply, recalling the prevailing philosophy when he was drafted by the Rangers in 1993.

Or, as Kings director of player personnel Nelson Emerson put it a couple years ago: “They’d just tell you to show up for training camp in September, and good luck and try and outwork everybody.”

Boy, have things changed. For young players who represent a franchise’s future, summer school is now expected.

NHL teams’ development camps have become a standard part of the summer only in the last decade or so. Draftees, minor leaguers and free agents from junior and college teams assemble for four or five days of teaching, and bonding, as well as a reminder that the big club is monitoring their progress.

“It’s very important to see all the coaches and other players here,” said Rasmus Kupari of Finland, the Kings’ first-round pick and 20th player selected overall at the draft in Dallas a week and a half ago. “The coaches are going to (point out) many things for me here, what I have to learn and (can apply) when I’m going back to Finland or the next team where I’m going to play.”

The Kings and Ducks held their camps last week, and while most of the participants played junior or college hockey last season, there were a few with ECHL and AHL experience, plus two — Ducks forwards Giovanni Fiore and Troy Terry — who have had brief stints in the NHL. Most are expected to return to Major Junior or NCAA programs next season.

“A lot of these guys, it’s the first time we’ve actually met ‘em,” the Kings’ Emerson said. “It’s great to get to put a face to the name and get to know the kid individually. In our department, one of our most important things is to develop relationships with these kids.

“They have to realize that we’re not really their coaches. We’re part of the development staff … we want to teach them the fundamentals that are going to be important for them to learn to play here in L.A.”

Both clubs lean heavily on former players in the development process. Emerson and Glen Murray — who recently became director of player development when Emerson was promoted to the player personnel role— are augmented by ex-Kings Mike Donnelly, Sean O’Donnell and Jarret Stoll. Marchant, a member of the Ducks’ 2007 Stanley Cup champions, is Anaheim’s player development director; the captain of that team, Scott Niedermayer, is in charge of off-ice player development and was providing on-ice instruction last week.

The teams’ AHL coaches, Ontario’s Mike Stothers and San Diego’s Dallas Eakins, participate in the summer sessions as well.

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It is primarily about instruction rather than evaluation. But the players know they’re being watched.

“You’re trying to make an impression on the management and the coaches, and every day is an opportunity,” said Kings’ prospect Jaret Anderson-Dolan, a second-round pick in 2017 who played most of the season at Spokane in the WHL but spent five games with Ontario at the end of the season.

But it’s safe to say a player can make a greater impression by listening, learning and applying those lessons.

“We’re teaching hockey concepts: How to defend a two-on-one, proper stick position, supporting your partner, taking pucks off the boards, working on faceoffs,” Marchant said. “When I go see them play (during the season with their respective clubs), I’m looking for those things — do they retain that stuff we’ve been teaching them over the four or five days that we have them?

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re in Acadie-Bathurst (in the Quebec League) or Tri-Cities, Wash. (in the Western League). That part of the game doesn’t change, and you can take that back with you and implement it in your game.”

The summertime camp can be a launching pad for a player on the cusp of the NHL. That’s the hope of Kings forward prospect Gabe Vilardi, their No. 1 pick in 2017 who missed last year’s camp as well as the first half of the 2017-18 season because of a back injury, but scored 22 goals in 32 regular-season games and added 11 in 11 playoff games for Kingston of the OHL.

Vilardi wasn’t part of this camp last year but was in L.A., part of a plan of treating and rehabbing his back that lasted into December. That allowed him to spend time around the big club, which he said allowed him to “see how they go about their business. They’ve all got wives and kids and what-not, but you see they come here for two hours, they’re focused, they have that mentality whether it’s in the video room or on the gym or on the ice. They’re here, 100 percent, and that’s the biggest thing I picked up.”

Such professionalism is what the youngsters are being taught this week, both on-ice instruction and off-ice guidance and even extending to proper conditioning and fitness habits.

“I would say 90 percent of all our kids that have been here before went up in all of their (fitness) testing,” the Ducks’ Marchant said. “So that means they’re understanding what they’re being taught and they’re implementing it. For a person in my role, that’s great because it means your message is getting across.”

The players who have been in camp before can be a valuable resource.

“A great example is Max Jones,” said Eakins of the Ducks’ 2016 first-round pick.

“Today’s player, I think you really have to explain why you do things rather than just tell them to do it, and so we ask a lot of questions on the ice. Last year Jonesy was pretty quiet out there. This year when I asked a question, he was the first one answering and he’s got the right answer.”

Jones, who joined San Diego for the 2017 AHL playoffs at the end of his junior season, had an injury-marred season in 2017-18. But he’s a big, rugged left wing who can score, with 22 goals in 40 games last season between regular season and playoffs.

At his first development camp in 2016, he said, he was “very, very, very nervous. When I came in, there were guys like … (Brandon) Montour was here. (Nick) Ritchie was here. (Shea) Theodore was here. I mean, all those guys are pros now, and it’s crazy to think how fast it happened.”

This year, the younger players asked him questions.

There’s a bonding dimension here, too. The brief time in camp reinforces the concept that, whether they’ve signed an entry level contract or not, these players are now part of a professional organization.

They come away identifying as Kings or Ducks, and they’ll maintain communication with their fellow campers as they go back to their individual teams, with the motivation of a common goal.

“It’s important to build relationships with these guys,” the Kings’ Anderson-Dolan said. “Hopefully, we’re all teammates at some point down the road.”

Jim Alexander is an Inland Empire native who started with his hometown newspaper, The Press-Enterprise, longer ago than he cares to admit. He's been a sports columnist off and on since 1992, and a full-time columnist since 2010. Yes, he's opinionated, but no, that's not the only club in his bag. He's covered every major league and major sports beat in Southern California over the years, so not much surprises him any more. (And he and Justin Turner have this in common: Both attended Cal State Fullerton. Jim has no plans to replicate Turner's beard.)